Possible Side Effects / by Courtney Mehlhaff

If you let me hang out with your children, I may inadvertently teach them things.

About a month ago, I went to a friend’s house for dinner. Afterward, we decided to watch a holiday movie, and we settled on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Now, her two boys, ages 11 and 9, had never seen it. But the younger one immediately recognized the thesis statement of the entire film by commenting after the first five minutes, “This dad is terrible.”

The humor is relatively mild, and the kids did okay with occasional profanity. It wasn’t until a dream sequence where Chevy Chase imagines a beautiful woman slowly beginning to remove her swimsuit that their reactions amped up.

Hoping to calm this sexy scene, I turned to the young gentlemen and said, “Guys! Relaaaax. It’s just a little side boob.”

And you know what? They quieted right down. Like that was a satisfactory explanation for what they were witnessing, and all they needed was a name for it.

Boys, that is side boob. Friends, I’m sorry I taught your kids about side boob.